I hate to be the first one to say this, but somebody has to. The James Paxton trade is looking, uh, not great.
Nobody expected Justus Sheffield, Dom Thompson-Williams, and Erik Swanson to match Paxton’s production this season. All three of them are young, while Paxton was and is a borderline ace. What people did expect is for those players’ future production to come at all close to matching Paxton’s. That’s looking a whole lot less likely than at this time one year ago.
Justus Sheffield’s stuggles were well-documented.